Aston Villa host Fulham at Villa Park this weekend, aiming to bounce back from their defeat at Molineux.

Last Saturday's 2-0 loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers halted a run of four Championship wins on the spin for Steve Bruce's men.

Villa's last two home matches have ended in victories over Nottingham Forest and Bolton Wanderers and three points would get their promotion push back on track.

The players enjoyed their final training session today - here are a few things we spotted:

Black eyed boy

There's been a remarkable statistic doing the rounds this week that since he signed for Villa in August 2016 James Chester has been a Championship ever-present.

Steve Bruce describes him as 'tough as teak' and it is an apt description. It's not as if Chester plays in a position where he is out of the firing line. He plays as a centre-half who faces bruising battles most weeks.

Previously he has played wearing a mask to protect a broken nose. Right now he appears to be sporting a shiner.

Not that it will stop him being involved against Fulham this weekend.

His Knibbs

Callum O'Hare has signed a new two-year deal this week and it continues Bruce's new found policy of promoting the kids to the first team scene.

Harvey Knibbs is the latest to benefit from the 'give youth a chance' approach.

The teenage striker was involved with the senior squad today and hopes to follow in the footsteps of O'Hare, Jake Doyle-Hayes and Mitch Clark who have all been given first team debuts this season.

Whether he will be in the matchday 18 to face Fulham remains to be seen.

Viva Richards

It's been a while.

In fact it's now one year and five days since Micah Richards last turned out for Villa in a competitive game.

Persistent injury troubles and plenty of options in central defence and at right-back have left him on the outside looking in.

The latest training pictures show that he is now fit enough to train again, but it would still be a major surprise for the man who last played in the 1-1 draw against Wolves on October 15 2016 to be involved this weekend.

Precious shins exposed

Okay, so we're a bit late to this - and we hardly deserve our 'Spotter's Badge', as Ron Atkinson used to say.

But we've noticed that the Villa players don't appear to be wearing shinpads during their practice matches.

We've had a closer peek and there's doesn't even seem to be any of those minuscule train ticket type ones that Jack Grealish favours.

It's not just Villa. We've checked our photo systems and seen other teams leaving their precious shins exposed.

It must be a 'thing'.

Would've never got away with it training for The Waterfall in the Warley Sunday League back in the day (although with the tackles that used to fly in back then, a suit or armour would have been more appropriate!).

Caring Kodjia

Kodjia

We're cheating a bit here. It's something we have spotted AFTER training rather than during.

But no sooner had Jonathan Kodjia pulled off his boots at Bodymoor Heath he was off to Birmingham city centre to help the homeless.

The popular striker, who often goes by his nickname Jimmy Danger, was photographed handing out food and drinks to those in most need of assistance, near the Bullring.